CAIRO -

On this day, July 14, 1944, the car of the Syrian artist Asmahan fell in the Sahel Canal, during her trip from Cairo to spend the weekend in the city of Ras El Bar in northern Egypt, to be killed instantly, and write a mysterious ending for a promising artist with an angelic voice in Age 32, the beginning of a storm of rumors about a fatal accident.

It was not easy for the public to accept the sudden departure of the beautiful artist, and rumors multiplied in the street and the press about who was behind the murder of Asmahan: Is it the royal palace and its queen, Nazli?

Or British intelligence?

Or her ex-husband?

Rather, the rumors amounted to accusing competitors of artists.

Wehbe: The accident was not intentional

The artist Youssef Wehbe tells - in a television interview - that Asmahan asked him for permission a day before her death to go with two of her friends to Ras El Bar, while filming the movie "Love and Revenge", which Asmahan starred in, and directed by Wehbe, and Wehbe tried to convince her to go with him and his wife to Alexandria instead. From Ras El Bar, but she refused.

On the morning of the accident, Wehbe repeated his offer to Asmahan, and suddenly the two friends came, and Asmahan told him that she could not change her plans and that she had to go with them, and the strange thing was that the two friends did not ride with her, and Asmahan got into the car of the King of Studio Egypt, which denies that the accident was intentional. According to Wehbe's narration.

Wehbe adds that God wanted Asmahan to leave life in the form of a scented flower, in the best possible image.

Asmahan had not finished shooting her second and last movie, "Gharam and Revenge." So Wehbe did his best to finish the movie, so he changed the film's ending to a sad ending in which Asmahan dies. It was fortunate that Asmahan recorded all her songs in the movie. The most famous of them is "Nights in Vienna".

From singing to cinema

At the beginning of the thirties of the twentieth century, Asmahan began to sing with her brother Farid al-Atrash in the famous Emad El-Din Street in central Cairo, and in 1941 she starred in the movie "The Victory of Youth" with Farid, Anwar Wagdy and Abdel Salam al-Nabulsi, and Farid composed all the songs of the film, and in 1944 Anwar Wagdy participated Zouz Madi, Amina Sherif, and Youssef Wehbe star in the movie "Love and Revenge".

Tricky love life

Asmahan's marital life never settled, as she married Prince Hassan al-Atrash in 1933, and moved to Jabal al-Druze in Syria, where she gave birth to her daughter Camelia, and after disagreements with her husband, a divorce took place and she returned to Egypt.

She married the Egyptian director Ahmed Badrakhan, and the marriage did not last long, and then she married the director and actor Ahmed Salem, at a time when gossip and rumors were raised about a romantic relationship between Asmahan and the head of the royal court, Ahmed Hassanein Pasha.

This relationship aroused the jealousy of Queen Nazli, the mother of King Farouk, who is also associated with an emotional relationship with Ahmed Hassanein, and it was also said that she married him customarily, and Ahmed Salem’s jealousy over his famous artist wife increased day after day, and a dispute between them caused him to shoot her, but he did not hurt her, so Asmahan ran away The police reported him.

Among the stories about Asmahan's short, mysterious life is her relationship with the British intelligence, which she resorted to for help in entering Syria and Lebanon, and she actually traveled to do what was entrusted to her.

Asmahan tells her story

In his book "Asmahan tells her story", the "Prince of the Egyptian Press" tells the famous writer Muhammad Al-Tabi - one of Asmahan's close friends - that she believed in herself that she would not live long, and described her, "She was attractive and was feminine, but she was not beautiful in terms of standards Beauty.. in her eyes was secret, magic and wonder.. Their color was dark green tinged with bluish and protected by long eyelashes that were almost intertwined with their length.. She loved to sing and loved beauty with all its colors and meanings.

Sharifa al-Tabi'i - the daughter of the writer Muhammad al-Tabi'i - confirms that her father's book on Asmahan was based on her will, to tell her story in the event of her death, to confirm that she was not a double spy, but was serving her country.

The daughter said - in a television interview - that there was a love relationship between Asmahan and Muhammad al-Tabi'i, and that he was waiting for her in Ras al-Bar on the day of her death, and he did not cry on the day of her death and did not go to condolences, but only sent a telegram of condolences.

A revolution in Fred's life

When Farid al-Atrash was asked, in a television interview at the end of his life, about his cherished wish that he wanted to fulfill, he said that he dreams that Asmahan sings from his tunes, and that he does not find someone like her to sing from his tunes, and he hopes that when he is deprived of the blessing of singing - due to health conditions - to be He has someone to express his tunes.

Al-Atrash added, "From the day Asmahan died, a revolution took place in my life... It turned out of fun... She was not just a sister, a friend, we live together in the same house... She suffered greatly after her death."

He tells that they walked together on their journey, and he composed her songs for her at first, and on the day he lost her, he lost half of his life. Farid presented a number of songs in lamentation for his sister, such as "You cry, eye."